


Somewhere to Belong

by vix_spes



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1409680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vix_spes/pseuds/vix_spes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s definitely not the Shire but Erebor finally feels like home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere to Belong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msdillydally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msdillydally/gifts).



> A very overdue gift!fic from the Happy October Swap last year....

It had taken many months for Erebor to come anywhere close to feeling like home for Bilbo Baggins, formerly of Bag End in the Shire. Part of that was because, well, because Erebor was a mountain and while hobbits lived in the ground, they didn’t live underground surrounded by cold, hard stone. That had been the first thing. The second thing had been that there was no greenery anywhere for miles. Balin had been quite correct when he had called the area surrounding the Lonely Mountain ‘the desolation’, and that had been before five armies had battled over it. No, the closest area of living things was Mirkwood and that wasn’t so much green as dank and festering. Besides, Bilbo had no real desire to return to Mirkwood; he had had quite enough of Thranduil already and he definitely didn’t want to deal with those blasted spiders again. Still, Erebor had improved hugely once they had removed the detritus left behind by Smaug and the dwarrows had started to return home.

Unfortunately for Bilbo and his distinctly hobbitish sensibilities, that meant more dwarrows with even more appalling manners than Bilbo had ever seen. Bilbo had presumed that his dwarrows (yes, his, he was rather proprietary of them) had bad manners but, when compared to some of the newcomers, there were positively mannerly. Not that that had stopped him from trying to impress some refinement on them, with the help of Dori and occasionally Balin. Bilbo was more than aware that there was no hope for the elder members of the Company – they were far too entrenched in bad habits – but there was still hope for the younger ones. Maybe. Fíli and Kíli idolised their Uncle Thorin and Dwalin too much to listen to Bilbo all the time but he did have support from Dís while Ori had been hen-pecked by Dori to have manners so was well-behaved unless led astray. But Bilbo had now committed himself to a lifetime of living with dwarrows so he was either going to have to learn to live with their manners or they were going to learn some. Never let it be said that Bilbo Baggins backed down from a challenge.

He had certainly never imagined that he would set out on a quest with thirteen dwarrows and a wizard, crossing the length of Middle Earth, meeting elves, battling orcs, goblins and giant spiders only to fall in love with a dwarrow king. The residents of Hobbiton would never believe him; he’d certainly be called ‘Mad Baggins’ now. He couldn’t help but wonder what the reaction had been like when a dwarrow caravan had turned up to collect his things. No doubt Lobelia Sackville-Baggins would have been apoplectic. Then there was the fact that he was all but married to the King of Erebor. They were simply waiting until Erebor was rebuilt and repopulated before they made things official. So he was essentially Thorin’s consort with all the duties that that entailed. He might not have known Dís all that long but he already loved Thorin’s sister as his own and he knew that she wouldn’t have had any qualms about fudging the truth to Lobelia.

Dís’ habit of being economical with the truth and all of his other complaints aside, Bilbo had to admit that what he loved about Erebor the most was that he finally had a family again. Somewhere to belong. He hated admitting to the possibility that Gandalf was right but he had been hiding in Bag End, refusing to leave the comforts of home. Strange then that a cold, stone mountain – parts of which still retained the stench of eau de fire drake – felt much more like home than Hobbiton and Bag End ever had after his parents died. He supposed it proved that it didn’t matter how many material things you had, it was people that made it home. That was a lesson he knew Thorin and the company had learnt long ago. As long as you had your family, you could deal with everything else. And that was what Bilbo had now; a family.

He had a husband (well, practically), a sister, two nephews and any number of random family members in the Company. It hadn’t taken long in the aftermath of the Battle of Five Armies for Fíli and Kíli to return to calling Thorin ‘uncle’ and even less time after that for them to start calling Bilbo ‘uncle’. Naturally exuberant anyway, the two princes had become even more so once the danger had receded. They had initially tried to call Bilbo ‘auntie’ but that had gone down like a lead balloon; he may become Thorin’s consort but that definitely didn’t make him ‘auntie’. The lads high spirits had helped everyone though, even if it did mean them fleeing from Thorin and Dwalin on a regular basis. On those occasions, Bilbo would do his best to corral them, treating them like he would the tweens in Hobbiton. They soon learnt that playing pranks on their Uncle Thorin meant that not only would they be strong-armed into helping their Uncle Bilbo with his ‘garden’ but neither would he bake their favourites.

Not that he had much time for baking given everything else that he had to do. As Thorin’s consort, Bilbo was expected to appear at court and also act as one of Thorin’s advisors, which entailed lots of tedious meetings, shadowing Balin and learning the guttural monstrosity that was Khuzhdûl. Unwilling to give up everything he loved, Bilbo also worked in the library helping Ori and had insisted on having somewhere to cook in his rooms, wanting to spoil his dwarrows. Much to his delight (and theirs, because they weren’t going to give up the opportunity for his cooking), it was actually far easier than he had envisaged. The rooms that he had been given in the Royal Wing had once belonged to Thorin and Dís’ grand-mother who, much like Bilbo, had delighted in spoiling her nearest and dearest so Thráin had built a kitchen in his wife’s chambers, chambers that now belonged to Bilbo.

Officially, as they were not yet married, Thorin and Bilbo had separate chambers but that meant very little to them and not only did they spend every night with Bilbo wrapped up in Thorin’s arms but their belongings were spread between the two sets of rooms. From where he stood now, Bilbo could see a set of Thorin’s formal robes and the cloths he used to clean Orcrist next to Bilbo’s favourite patchwork dressing gown and a volume of Elvish poetry that had once belonged to Bilbo’s mother and Thorin rolled his eyes at every time he saw it. There were piles of paperwork waiting for Thorin to deal with next to the book that Bilbo was writing about their quest to be illustrated by Ori. All in all, it painted a pretty picture of domesticated life together.

It wasn’t really the conventional life that Bilbo had ever envisaged but then he supposed that he was never really going to be a particularly conventional hobbit, given that he was the son of a Took and a Baggins. Besides, conventional was overrated.

He was startled out of his thoughts as strong arms wrapped around his waist accompanied by warmth like a furnace and soft bristles brushing his neck as Thorin kissed him in greeting.

“You were miles away âzyungel. Are you okay?”

“Mmm, just lost in my thoughts. Has the council meeting finished already?”

“Already? I’m an hour late. We are expected in the dining hall now.”

“What? Why were you so late?” Bilbo allowed Thorin to prod him out of the door. “There aren’t any problems are there?”

“No. We’ve had a raven; the last of the caravans have crossed the Misty Mountains so Dwalin has requested permission to marry Ori.”

A wide grin split Bilbo’s face at that. “That’s wonderful news! I’m so pleased for them.”

“Yes. It also means we no longer have to wait so I’ve told Dís to start planning the ceremony.”

“You what?!”

**Author's Note:**

> If you would prefer to comment on LJ, you can do so [here](http://vix-spes.livejournal.com/160195.html)


End file.
